


All Your Villains: Alexander Pierce

by PumpkinDoodles



Series: All Your Villains [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: All Your Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 00:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18680095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinDoodles/pseuds/PumpkinDoodles
Summary: The Girl in the Embassy





	All Your Villains: Alexander Pierce

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing! Continuing my writing exercise of giving MCU villains interior narratives instead of being all, wham, you’re bad now because _plot twist!_

“Alex! Alex,” his wife says, shaking him awake. When he jumps, her touch is gentle. “Another nightmare,” Catherine says softly.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Again.” The last word is weighted.

“You promised me that you’d see someone,” she tells him.

“I will,” he says. “I will.”

“Sure,” she says. They have been married for twenty-seven years.

“Catherine, I can’t just talk to anyone, I have to be careful. What if I—slip or something?” Alexander says. “I could accidentally leak a state secret.”

She laughs then. “That’s complete bullshit,” she tells him. “Maybe you can lie to yourself like that, but not to me. You have been having nightmares since our only child survived a hostage situation, Alex. It has nothing to do with your job.”

He sits up in bed, runs a hand through his hair and lets out the words he’s been holding in, buried deep in his ribs, ever since his heart migrated permanently to his throat at the words _your daughter is still inside the embassy, sir._

 

“It has _everything_ to do with my job,” he says bitterly. “Everything. The postings, the ambassadorships, the Nobel nomination, what the fuck is any of it worth if I can’t save my own child? Megan almost died. In a US embassy. She was there because I was there and she almost died. An embassy, for God’s sake. I can’t keep my child safe there, she’s not safe anywhere...”

“Alex,” she says, “Megan is okay.”

“She’s okay because Nick Fury broke the rules,” he says. “I don’t know that I would have broken them, Catherine—all my life, I’ve done things the right way. But what if that’s not enough? I keep thinking, _how many Megans have died because I did things by the rules?_ ”

“Honey, you have to stop beating yourself up like this,” she says tenderly. “What if I call someone, make you an appointment?”

“No, you’re right, I should see someone,” he says.

 

He is going to make the call, schedule the appointment, but there is a Foreign Relations Committee thing, one of those interminable DC cocktail parties that are boring but necessary. He goes so that some Tennessee Congressman will rail 8% less about the evils of the UN and possibly ask one less stupid question at the next hearing, out of some form of personal friendship. This is what passes for friendship in the district, anyhow. Normally, he is polite and friendly, but professional. Only this time someone—the new Wisconsin senator, a genuinely nice woman—touches his sleeve. “Oh, Alex,” she says, “I was so glad to hear that your daughter was all right.”

He breaks a little. Stutters out a _thank_ _you_ and blinks back the tears. It’s her sincerity, he registers, that got under his practiced air of calmness. His professional mentor, the former Secretary of State, always said it was best to convey calmness. It’s a rule he has followed for the better part of two decades in diplomatic work.

 

He is splashing a little water on his face in the men’s room when someone clears their throat behind him. “Everyone breaks sometimes, Alex,” Senator Stern tells him. Pierce doesn’t respect Stern, but he plays along.

“That right?” he says.

“The trick is in how you recover. We’ve got a little poker game going, a few of us, for people who want to pursue new solutions,” Stern says. Pierce holds in the urge to laugh.

“I don’t think a tax cut will do anything about terrorism,” he says.

“Oh, this isn’t you usual policy wonk stuff, Alex. This is a comprehensive world security plan,” Stern says.

“A comprehensive world security plan?” Pierce repeats skeptically.

“Yep, this will change your whole worldview,” Stern insists. “You have to start begging forgiveness, not asking for permission to get anything to change.” He hands Pierce a card with an address on the back. “Just show up, we’d love to have you. Wednesday at eight,” Stern tells him.

 

When Stern leaves, Pierce checks his tie in the mirror. “Do I need to beg forgiveness?” he wonders out loud, thinking of his daughter’s tear-stained face as she ran to him in Bogota.

 

_He had left her behind. For as long as she lived, she would know he’d gotten out and she hadn’t. Did she still think he was a good man, a good father now?_

 


End file.
